As of today, you have 97 Days Until Christmas
From now until Christmas, I will be sharing my tried and true tips for saving money on Christmas and holidays. Everything from your gift shopping, your holiday cards, teacher gifts or even Holiday Entertaining....in this economy, we all need to save some money!
I've never understood the appeal of shopping on Black Friday.
Getting up at the crack of Oh-Good-Gord-The-Sun-Isn't-Even-Up to stand in line outside a store? Then fighting the mad rush in to the store to the one section of the store where they have 10 items for the 50 people searching for them? SO not for me!
Not only that, there seems to be something about shopping that day that makes people overspend. They get caught up in the excitement of Black Friday and start swiping that credit card like crazy. A Robo-Stir marked down to just $9.99? I MUST HAVE IT!
Years ago, I would have said that it was a sacrilege to shop for Christmas before Halloween. Now I start shopping immediately after Labor Day. The way I figure it, if I have to come up with the amount of money in my Christmas Budget, it is easier to find an extra $50 1 week than $2000 in the 5 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas!
There is another motive as well....being able to enjoy the Christmas Season itself! As a rule, I like to have all of my shopping done by Thanksgiving (yet for some reason, I never get around to wrapping anything until 2 days before Christmas). With the shopping done, I can concentrate of celebrating with my family, baking cookies and being happy that I am NOT driving through a mall parking lot for 30 minutes looking for a parking spot.
By shopping early I:
1. Stay within my Christmas budget
2. Am able t have a "Cash Christmas"
3. Don't feel the "crunch" of trying to find the perfect gift for someone the night before our gift exchange
4. Am more relaxed and don't get so wrapped up with buying gifts that I forget what Christmas is all about.
When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Make sure you that check out the rest of the Countdown To Christmas tips that I have posted! Do you have a tip to share? Submit your Holiday Savings Tips and they might be featured in a future post!
** Note: these tips apply to everyone at this time of year and I mean no disrespect to those who don't celebrate Christmas. I just thought "Countdown to Christmas" was a catchier title for a series than "Let's Get Ready For Whatever Holiday You May or May Not Celebrate" **
Diane Kinney
I shop for Christmas year round. When I see something that would make a nice gift, I grab it but save the receipt in case I find something else. I just bought a chair to bring to soccer games for only $3.24 on clearance. I grabbed a second one for a Christmas gift.
Another tip is to use Christmas clearance to get nice shower gifts. If you know someone who is getting married in the upcoming year, you can find some nice Christmas plates or a nativity set as a wedding gift. A new baby? I buy the "Baby's 1st Christmas" outfits and assorted books to make a lovely shower gift. I even wrap it in a holiday gift bag to go with the theme. It's always a big hit.
Kim S.
YEAH!!!!! I'm not the only one who has no desire to shop on Black Friday. I'm so used to hearing the response "WHAT?!?!?!?! You don't like Black Friday?!?!?!" and a look like I just grew a 2nd head. I agree with the overspending part. I wonder how many people end up buying way more than they'd normally purchase just because of some "great deal". I believe stores mark down just a couple popular 'big ticket' items that they only carry a few of just to get people in the stores and then mark-up other items to make a profit. From a marketing standpoint, it's actually a good scheme to improve overall sales. If I really cared and had the time....or was REALLY bored (I wonder what that is like), it would be interesting to do a study and "follow" the prices of certain items through the fall season to see when is the better deal for things, early on or during the holiday rush. I'm willing to bet you get better prices early on.